The Steep and Thorny Way

by Cat Winters

  “Stop it,” said the sheriff, and he sped us through the junction of the roads. “That’s not funny in the slightest.”

  “And farther along, through that next patch of trees—I’m sure he’s been there.”

  “Hank Denney’s body and soul left Oregon back in 1921,” said the sheriff with a glance back at me. “We made absolutely certain, when we hoisted him off the ground, that no part of that godforsaken Negro would linger in this state—that’s for damn sure.” Only he didn’t say Negro.

  The sheriff turned back around in his seat and gave a start, for just ahead, smack-dab in the middle of the road, stood my father in the light of the patrol car’s headlights.

  “Holy Mother of—” The sheriff steered us off the road, to the right. Brakes screeched. The car reared and bucked. A fir tree rose up ahead. I opened my mouth to scream, but before any sound left my throat, my body slammed against something hard amid a deafening crack of thunder.

  “HANALEE,” SAID A VOICE RICH AND DEEP. OAK AND honey. Woods and river waters. “We need to get you out of this car before the fire reaches the backseat, darling.”

  My eyes refused to open. Pain awakened across my body, from the top of my forehead all the way down to the muscles of my legs—a dull ache at first, then a roar of agony. I coughed on smoke and believed my bones to be blazing with fire inside me.

  “Hanalee,” said the voice again, and I knew it was my father, offering comfort.

  I lifted my eyelids and found Daddy poking his head into the open doorway of the backseat of the sheriff’s car. His black derby sat far enough back on his head for me to see his big brown eyes, which glistened with concern. My body, wedged between the front seat and the backseat, lay in a tangle of bleeding legs and arms, in a space that seemed too small to be the interior of an automobile. Smoke blackened the nighttime air and stung my eyes, and I heard the sputter of flames.

  “Wrap your arms around my shoulders, honey”—Daddy leaned into the vehicle and maneuvered his left arm behind my sore back—“and I’ll carry you home.”

  “Can’t,” I said with a grunt. “Handcuffs.”

  Daddy reached his free arm under my legs, and before the fire licked its way across the front seat, he scooped me out of a burning mass of twisted steel that hugged the trunk of a tree that no longer stood upright.

  “The sheriff?” I asked, remembering our flight into that trunk. “Sheriff Rink?”

  “Don’t pay any heed to him.” Daddy steered me away from the wreckage, while the flames snapped and sparked into the air with flashes of unnatural light. “Now he’s the one wandering the highway, looking for redemption.”

  Out by the road, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the movement of a shadow—the stocky figure of a man who carried a white hood beneath his arm. I closed my eyes, and the orange glow of the flames shone against the backs of my lids.

  Though I must have been heavy—a grown sixteen-year-old girl with a body weighed down by pain and fatigue—Daddy held me as though I were still no more than four years old. I pressed my face against the fresh whiskers on his cheeks and the coarse wool of his shoulder, and I fell asleep, thinking of wading in creek water and childhood nights when Daddy told me to love the world, even when it didn’t love me back.

  CHAPTER 28

  REST, PERTURBED SPIRIT

  I OPENED MY EYES TO THE SIGHT OF sunshine streaming through my bedroom window, between the ruffles of my ivory curtains. A robin chirped in one of the trees beyond the panes. A hazy blur of white lingered by my red desk, and I smelled lilacs.

  I blinked several times in a row, and the haze brightened and shifted into the shape of a girl with blond hair and a lace dress.

  “Hana-Honey?” asked the girl, who sounded an awful lot like Fleur. “Are you awake?”

  I blinked some more and lifted my right hand in front of my face, unsure if the appendage would be made of solid flesh.

  “Hanalee?” she asked again, and she hurried toward me with her skirts swooshing, her blue eyes gleaming. “You’re awake. You’re awake!”

  “Am I alive?” I asked with a terrible croak in my voice.

  “Yes.” Fleur laughed and kissed my cheek, and her touch eased a dull pain that nibbled at my right leg and my back. “You’re badly banged up, you poor thing. Your right leg is broken and stuck in a cast, and your left wrist is sprained and wrapped up in bandages. But”—she sat down beside me and stroked my hair with the tips of soft fingers—“you’re alive.”

  “Was I . . .” My mind sped back to Daddy, appearing out of nowhere in the middle of the road, and Sheriff Rink, sending us careering off the pavement. “Was I . . . Did the car . . . D-d-did it—?”

  “No one’s really quite sure what happened to you. Mildred said she saw the sheriff drive away with you, but Dr. Koning found the wreckage of that car, and he said he doesn’t . . .” She lowered her eyes. “He doesn’t know how you would have made it out of that pile of metal alive.”

  “Uncle Clyde carried me home?”

  She shook her head. “They don’t know how you made it home. Your mother discovered you lying on your front porch when Dr. Koning was getting dressed and telephoning Deputy Fortaine. Laurence and Gil had shown up a short while earlier and claimed you talked about a murder. Your mother thought someone had beaten you badly and left you there.”

  “Joe!” I tried to sit up, but the muscles in my back and my neck screamed at me to stop.

  “No, no, no.” Fleur lowered me back to my pillow by my shoulders. “Don’t try to get up, sweetie. You don’t need to worry about Joe.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “No.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s recovering. Mildred found him, fainted dead away, with a noose tied around his neck. She thought he had been lynched to death, but then he came to and said the last thing he remembered seeing was you and a gun.”

  “Oh . . . yes . . . the gun,” I said with a sigh that sank me deeply into the mattress, and only then did I realize I must have been under the influence of morphine or some other substance that shrank the pain into those tiny nibbles. My eyelids—two thick flaps of lead—pushed with all their might to stay open. “I shot a bullet past Joe’s ear to make him . . . to stop them from . . .” I closed my eyes and jumped at the sound of the stable door banging open, while Joe and I cowered in a stall.

  “Hanalee?” asked Fleur.

  I opened my eyes, and it took a moment before the terror from the night before left my tingling nerves, and for the air to become easier to breathe.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “Joe?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s at his parents’ house, recovering from the shock of what happened.”

  “No, that’s not good.” I tried to sit up again.

  “Lie back down, Hanalee.” She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me back to the bed. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “They’re going to hurt him,” I said with my face pressed against her cheek. “They’re going to send him off to people—people who’ll try to change him.”

  She let me go and sat up straight. “No one’s going to hurt Joe.”

  “We planned to get out of this place, he and I. I wanted to take you, too, and Mama. I imagined all of us living together, free and peaceful, with nobody bothering us about anything. We could marry who we wanted, be what we wanted to be . . .”

  She smiled and pulled on a lock of my bobbed hair.

  I reached up and nudged my fingers between hers.

  For a brief moment, I saw Joe again—in the dark—dragged across the ground with his wrists tied behind his back. The rustle of feet scraping across twigs in the dirt bothered my ears. The smell of torches burned my nostrils.

  I tried to shift my position on the bed, attempting to turn onto my right side, but the nips of pain bit down harder. A shaky breath left my lips. “Is the sheriff dead, Fleur?”

  “Yes.” She squeezed my hand that held hers.
“He is.”

  “The car?”

  “Dr. Koning believes he died as soon as the car hit the tree.”

  I nodded, and a bitter taste scoured my tongue.

  “Joe told Dr. Koning and the deputy that he thought you shot at him on purpose,” she said, “to make him faint and look dead. He feels terrible if your injuries came about because of ending up inside that patrol car.”

  “You’ve talked to Joe?”

  “He and his parents were over here this morning. Mama and I came over, too. Everyone’s trying to make sense of what happened.”

  “Who’s running Elston now?”

  “Deputy Fortaine is taking over, although not everyone’s pleased with that arrangement. His Jewish blood and lack of Klan support . . .” Fleur pressed her lips together and gave a shudder. Strands of fair hair swayed against her face. “I know . . .” She drew a deep breath. “I know Laurence was there last night . . . dressed in Klan attire.”

  “Yes.” I grunted and arched my back, for pain suddenly gnashed into my leg. “He was.”

  “My mama . . . Sh-sh-she . . .” Fleur shifted away from me.

  “What?” I asked, opening my eyes, settling back against the mattress. “What about your mother?”

  Fleur withdrew her hand from mine. “She says if Laurence needs to be in the Klan to keep himself looking like an upright young man, then that’s simply where he needs to be. Deputy Fortaine isn’t going to help our family in the slightest, because he’s against both the Klan and bootleggers. He aims to clean up Elston of both problems, but Laurence needs to keep bootlegging in secret so we can keep putting food on the table.”

  “You’re going to stay living in a Klan house, Fleur?”

  She kept her face tilted away from mine.

  “Mama and Uncle Clyde talked about moving me out of this state,” I said, “to somewhere with kinder laws.” I cupped my fingers around the slim bones of her wrist. “You should come with us.”

  “Mama would hate that.” She squirmed. “Laurence, too.”

  “I don’t care. I want to know you’ll be all right. I don’t want to think of you getting married off to someone like Robbie Witten. I want you with me.”

  She brushed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “How did you get out of that burned-up patrol car, Hanalee? How did you make it back home?”

  I swallowed and remembered the warmth of my cheek nuzzled against the wool of Daddy’s shoulder. “I had that lucky sprig of alfalfa you gave me, tucked inside one of my boots.”

  She lowered her hand to her lap. “Tell me really. What happened?”

  “Well . . .” I licked my lips. “My father . . . my biological father, Hank Denney . . . he . . .” I cleared my throat. “He carried me home.”

  Fleur met my eyes again and didn’t say a word.

  “If I made it home last night,” I said, “then I suppose that means he finally made it home, too.” My head drifted to my right. My eyelids sank halfway shut. “And now . . . perhaps . . . he can rest in peace. That poor spirit can finally rest.”

  “Are you certain? It was truly him?”

  “I was there, in the backseat of the sheriff’s burning car, and then Daddy pulled me out of the wreckage and carried me home.” My breathing eased into the steady pattern of sleep, even though I remained half awake. “Where are my parents?”

  “Talking with the reverend again, downstairs. They told me I could sit with you while you slept.”

  “As soon as you hear we’re moving,” I said, although my tongue seemed to swell into a slab of cement, “pack your bags.”

  “I can’t run off with your family.”

  “Don’t think of it as running off with my family.” I lifted my eyelids far enough to see the concerned blue of her irises. “Think of it as running off to be with me, in a land like the ones we created as children.”

  “There’s no such place, Hanalee.”

  “We’ll make the place ourselves,” I said, and I allowed myself to drift back into sleep.

  I AWOKE AGAIN SOMETIME LATER AND FOUND THREE vases of flowers sitting on my red desk. The sharp sweetness of petals and pollen flooded my nose, and I squinted in confusion at the baffling array of roses, carnations, lilies, and hydrangeas.

  Instead of Fleur, a fuzzy golden teddy bear now sat beside me on the bed, and both Mama and Uncle Clyde stood over me, one parent on each side of my legs. Uncle Clyde sneezed, no doubt because of the pollen.

  Mama moved the teddy bear aside and perched herself on the right edge of the mattress.

  “How are you feeling, darling?” she asked.

  I breathed through a sudden spike of pain. “I hurt.”

  “I know.” She blinked several times in a row and covered the back of my right hand with one of her palms. “I’m sure you do, but I’m just so grateful you’re alive.”

  “The morphine’s wearing off by now, I assume.” Uncle Clyde cupped a hand around my forehead, as though to check for a fever. “I’ll give you another dose soon.”

  “What happened, Hanalee?” asked Mama. “How did you and Joe end up out at the Dry Dock? Why weren’t you in your room?”

  I sucked in a deep breath and told them the entire story—Joe hiding in our stable with a broken nose, the Klansmen throwing open the door with a crash I could still hear inside my head, the nooses, the gun, the handcuffs, Daddy’s ghost standing in the middle of the road, spooking Sheriff Rink. I didn’t know if they believed me, but I told them everything, and they nodded and said, “I see.”

  I peered across my room at the summer blooms. “Why are there flowers in my room?” I lifted the little bear. “And this teddy bear?”

  “The bear is from the Adders.” Mama tucked the stuffed animal by my side. “The reverend brought that over when he visited earlier this afternoon. The flowers are from friends who heard how badly you got hurt.”

  I gaped at the tokens of concern. “People . . . people in Elston . . . were worried about me?”

  “Quite worried.” Uncle Clyde reached across to my right wrist and checked my pulse. “The reverend called a special town meeting just a couple of hours ago and asked for the residents of this community to take a stand against the Klan. He said it’s time we put up a fight instead of ignoring the problem.”

  “And then the Markses and a few of the younger girls from school and their families showed up at the door,” said Mama, “bearing flowers and food to ensure you’d feel better. Mildred tried to hand me some sort of questionable cure-all for broken-bone pain, but that particular gift I turned away.”

  A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.

  “Mildred also told me to thank you for taking care of the matter she requested you to,” added Mama. “Although she wouldn’t say what that matter was.”

  I nodded, and a tear slid down my right cheek with the burn of salt.

  My mother brushed my face with the back of her right hand. “Not everyone’s a part of that group, Hanalee. As I said before, it’s just a small, obnoxious percentage of residents causing the trouble.”

  “We’re going to move, though, aren’t we?” I asked.

  “The Klan, and even the eugenics movement”—Uncle Clyde swallowed—“they aren’t problems exclusive to Oregon, unfortunately.” He laid my wrist back down on the bed. “But we are strongly considering a move, perhaps up to Washington, where you wouldn’t be faced with interracial marriage laws. The physician friend of mine who offered to help Joe said he’d also help me if things turned ugly down here.”

  I nuzzled the fuzz of the teddy bear’s head against my chin and thought I smelled the scent of pond water. “Is Joe going up there?”

  “More than likely.” Uncle Clyde sat down on the opposite side of my legs from Mama, and the mattress squeaked beneath me. “His father still doesn’t know what to do about him.”

  “Don’t worry so much about everyone else right now.” Mama stroked my right arm, below my elbow. “You just rest and heal. Your body’s been through a grea
t deal of trauma, and it needs sleep and care.”

  I nodded again, and my brain wobbled from the movement. “I am awfully tired,” I said, “but I don’t think I can quite stop worrying about everyone just yet.”

  CHAPTER 29

  TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

  ON A MONDAY AFTERNOON, FOUR days after I’d seen Joe collapse into the grasses in front of the old oak tree, I heard the distinctive chug-chug-chug of a Model T pulling into the drive in front of our house. Uncle Clyde had carried me downstairs for the afternoon, for the heat in my bedroom roasted me good, and my right leg itched from sweating inside my cast. I reclined on the sofa with my broken leg stretched out in front of me and my left wrist propped on a pillow. A sizable percentage of my body remained bruised and sore.

  I heard the car pulling up outside while I was in the midst of attempting a pencil sketch of the trees outside our window—the type of sketch my father liked to draw. If we were to leave the state, I wanted a visual record of my woods.

  “Is someone here?” I called to Mama upstairs and Uncle Clyde in his little study in the back of the house. An unsettled feeling, equal parts dread and curiosity, brewed inside my chest. The world outside still didn’t feel safe enough to expect every visitor to be a benevolent one.

  Uncle Clyde—too protective to yet return to full-time office hours—hustled into the living room and veered straight toward the front window. “It’s Joe.”

  “Really?” I set the paper and pencil aside. “Did he drive over? Does his nose look all right?”

  “I bandaged him up to ensure it would heal properly. It looks like he hasn’t picked off the wrappings, which is good.” Uncle Clyde strode out of the living room and to the front door around the corner.

  Joe knocked, and I heard my stepfather open the door for him just as Mama’s feet traveled down the staircase.

  “Hello, Joseph,” said Uncle Clyde from around the bend.

  “Hello, sir,” said Joe, although I couldn’t yet see him. His voice sounded so formal, I almost didn’t recognize it—I almost even laughed. “How’s Hanalee?”